Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.
Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into corona virus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic
As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted … like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”
It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party, and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.
The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV. If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.
Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?
It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.
Abject surrender
What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety. Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3 that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.
In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities.”Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”
This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic.
It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the virus draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providential-ism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.
Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralyzed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.
The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.
Fertile ground
But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.
There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St. Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.
Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder. And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.
That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.
And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.
As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics. Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.
THE OWLS' NEST - Mostly U.S. Politics
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Fintan O'Toole On Trump
I'm attaching a copy of an article by Fintan O'Toole (a noted journalist with The Irish Times who spends a good part of every year in the U.S.), entitled "THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT":
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
News Flash: Trump Lies!
Click here for an article in The New York Times by Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, and Linda Qiu, entitled "White House Orders Staff to Wear Masks as Trump Misrepresents Testing Record."
Declaring once again that “if somebody wants to be tested right now, they’ll be able to be tested,” Mr. Trump said that his administration was working with states to allow them to conduct 12.9 million tests in May, insisting that the testing ability in the United States compares favorably with other countries.Shades of W's "Mission Accomplished":
“We are testing more people per capita than South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Sweden, Finland and many other countries,” he said, ignoring countries where testing on a per capita basis is higher, including Germany, Russia, Spain, Canada, Switzerland and at least 20 others, according to statistics compiled by Our World in Data.
Flanked by large posters that proclaimed “America leads the world in testing,” Mr. Trump also declared victory over the pandemic, saying that “we have met the moment and we have prevailed.” Later, under questioning, he revised his comments, saying he only meant to say the country had prevailed on increasing access to testing.
Trump v. Scarborough
There's a Twitter feud going on between Trump and Scarborough. Trump tweeted:
Scarborough responded on the MSNBC show, "Morning Joe," that Scarborough co-hosts with his wife, Mika Brzezinski (who Trump has also viciously attacked in the past):
“‘Concast’ [I guess he means Comcast?] should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough ... I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is “nuts”. Besides, bad ratings! #OPENJOECOLDCASE.”In 2001, while Scarborough was serving as a Republican congressman from Florida, a 28-year-old intern, Lori Klausutis, was found dead in his Florida constituency office. The death was ruled to be unsuspicious; she had a heart condition and suffered an attack which caused her to fall, and she struck her head.
Scarborough responded on the MSNBC show, "Morning Joe," that Scarborough co-hosts with his wife, Mika Brzezinski (who Trump has also viciously attacked in the past):
I know you meant to be extraordinarily cruel to me by attacking me, by bringing up a conspiracy theory that has lived in the gutters of the Internet for some time now. But just like the Seth Rich conspiracy murder that was pushed by your allies, you don’t understand the pain you cause.”He said that the president’s accusations dredge up pain for “the families who’ve already lost a loved one. Not me. Not my children. Not anybody that knows me. They know the truth. You once again drag a family through this and make them relive it again, just like Seth Rich’s parents, as if losing a loved one the first time isn’t enough.”
Friday, May 8, 2020
Do We Really Want "Freedom," American Style?
Click here for an article in The New York Times' "Opinion Today," by editorial page editor James Bennet.
It's all worth the read, but here's the section I like, on Finland -- and check out the bolded paragraph at the end:
Before our office shut down and we all dispersed, one of the last editorial board meetings we held in person was with the prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin. At 34, she’s the youngest female prime minister in the world.
She spoke about Finland’s challenges in coping with climate change, immigration and a movement of people to cities that is hollowing out rural communities. Again and again, as she talked about sustaining political consensus to confront these challenges, she returned to the importance of the sense of security Finns feel because of their strong social safety net, including free health care and university.
“It gives people freedom when you have a very strong welfare state,” she told us.
That formulation stands the American politics of freedom on its head. Franklin Roosevelt may have envisioned freedom from want, but in recent decades freedom here has come to mean freedom from taxes, freedom from regulation, freedom from having to wear a mask in public. The American left has largely conceded the rhetoric and even the idea of freedom to the right.
Told that some Americans look at Finland and fear socialism, the prime minister smiled. As neighbors of the Soviet Union, Finns had seen a socialist experiment up close and wanted no part of it. “We are an open-market society,” she said proudly.
Our columnist Nicholas Kristof, in a deeply reported exploration of the Nordic model, had the brilliant idea to look at what it’s like to work for McDonald’s in Denmark. The answer is that, even though Denmark has no minimum wage, you make about $22 an hour and get “six weeks of paid vacation a year, life insurance, a year’s paid maternity leave and a pension plan.” All that plus the Danish guarantees of medical insurance and paid sick leave.
It's all worth the read, but here's the section I like, on Finland -- and check out the bolded paragraph at the end:
Before our office shut down and we all dispersed, one of the last editorial board meetings we held in person was with the prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin. At 34, she’s the youngest female prime minister in the world.
She spoke about Finland’s challenges in coping with climate change, immigration and a movement of people to cities that is hollowing out rural communities. Again and again, as she talked about sustaining political consensus to confront these challenges, she returned to the importance of the sense of security Finns feel because of their strong social safety net, including free health care and university.
“It gives people freedom when you have a very strong welfare state,” she told us.
That formulation stands the American politics of freedom on its head. Franklin Roosevelt may have envisioned freedom from want, but in recent decades freedom here has come to mean freedom from taxes, freedom from regulation, freedom from having to wear a mask in public. The American left has largely conceded the rhetoric and even the idea of freedom to the right.
Told that some Americans look at Finland and fear socialism, the prime minister smiled. As neighbors of the Soviet Union, Finns had seen a socialist experiment up close and wanted no part of it. “We are an open-market society,” she said proudly.
Our columnist Nicholas Kristof, in a deeply reported exploration of the Nordic model, had the brilliant idea to look at what it’s like to work for McDonald’s in Denmark. The answer is that, even though Denmark has no minimum wage, you make about $22 an hour and get “six weeks of paid vacation a year, life insurance, a year’s paid maternity leave and a pension plan.” All that plus the Danish guarantees of medical insurance and paid sick leave.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Trump, High School Hero? Not So Much
Click here for an article at the Daily Beast by Jamie Ross, entitled "Box Scores Show Trump Lied His Ass Off About Being a High School Baseball Legend."
Here’s a shock—President Trump, who has repeatedly boasted about how great he was at baseball in high school and how he could totally have gone pro if he’d wanted to, actually pretty much sucked at it. Slate has managed to unearth nine box scores from Trump’s time at New York Military Academy, which showed a four-for-29 batting record in his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons, with three runs batted in and a single run scored. Trump’s batting average in the nine games Slate found box scores for stood at a disappointing .138. Slate asked The Athletic’s Keith Law, a senior baseball writer, if Trump’s numbers sounded like those of someone who could have gone pro. “You don’t hit .138 for some podunk, cold-weather high school playing the worst competition you could possibly imagine,” Law said. “It’s absolutely laughable. He hit .138—he couldn’t fucking hit, that’s pretty clear.”
Trump, The Showman
Click here for an article at The Plum Line, a WaPo blog by Paul Waldman, entitled "Trump knows exactly how to save his reelection: With a show."
Trump knows how to do it: He's done it before.
Trump knows how to do it: He's done it before.
"In the early 2000s, after a couple of casino bankruptcies and other business failures, Trump’s fortune had collapsed, almost no bank would lend to him, and he was hugely in debt. How did he bring himself back? He got an offer to star in a reality TV show.What is Trump going to do?
“The Apprentice” saved him, not only providing him a stream of direct income but giving him incalculably valuable PR. What’s relevant for our current moment is the way it covered Trump’s shabby reality in a layer of gold leaf, and in doing so revived him. Here’s how the New Yorker described it:
“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth — a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” [editor Jonathan] Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”
The TV producers used all their skills, and it worked, reinforcing for Trump a principle on which he had built his career: If you’re relentless enough, you can create a false image that eventually turns into reality, or at least something close. Tell everyone you’re the very embodiment of wealth and success, and you can con people into giving you so much money that you actually become wealthy and successful.
So Trump is now saying that before the pandemic he delivered the greatest economy the world had ever seen (itself a ridiculous lie), and he’ll do it again. How is he going to do that?
It’s not going to be with a repeat of his prior economic policies, which basically came down to cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations, slashing regulations on things such as environmental protection and worker safety, and launching a destructive trade war with China. In fact, don’t be surprised if there are little or no significant policy moves at all on the administration’s part.
What Trump does is PR. So that’s what he’ll do.
He’ll visit factories carefully chosen with MAGA hat-wearing CEOs who will play their part and thank him profusely for getting America back on its feet. He’ll hold events at the White House where he can sit inside a truck and honk the horn like a real big boy. He’ll tout the progress of the stock market. He’ll have rallies again — so many rallies — where he’ll say that no one has ever seen such an amazing comeback, it’s fantastic, it’s incredible, world leaders are calling me to say how impressed they are. He’ll remind us that the pandemic was the fault of China and Democratic governors and Barack Obama, but he brought prosperity back.
Every Republican will repeat the message: America suffered a blow, but Trump has saved us and now everything is great again.
The fact that by November the economy will almost certainly not be great will not be part of the show. Just as today Trump is utterly incapable of feeling or communicating empathy for those who have lost family and friends to the coronavirus, he will have no time for the unemployed, the bankrupt, the fearful or the uncertain. Only Trump-haters could dwell on that, he’ll say. The truth is that we’re in paradise, thanks to me.
Can this show actually persuade people to ignore the reality of their own lives and communities? One would hope not, but you never know. Given his own experience, Trump is probably sure that it will. And it’s about all he has left.
More McConnell Iniquity
In October 2019, Justin Walker -- a protégé of Mitch McConnell -- was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. District Court in Kentucky. He's 37 years old. Upon graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who was then sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (He gave 119 media interviews during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings for SCOTUS.) He was appointed despite the fact that the ABA (the American Bar Association) rated Walker "not qualified," saying that Walker “has a very substantial gap, namely the absence of any significant trial experience.”
According to The New York Times, "The District of Columbia appeals court is considered a steppingstone to the Supreme Court and is also viewed as a highly influential arbiter of many of Washington’s disputes over federal policy and separation of powers."
The Walker appointment, first to the federal bench in Kentucky and then to the second-highest court in the U.S., is typical of McConnell's drive to cement his legacy: appointment of extreme right-wing Trump appointments to U.S. federal courts (and young ones at that, who may continue to infect the country's judicial findings for the next 40 years).
But here's a new wrinkle to the poisonous McConnell legacy. Click here for an article in The New York Times by Carl Hulse, entitled "Appeals Court Vacancy Is Under Scrutiny Ahead of Contested Confirmation Hearing."
According to The New York Times, "The District of Columbia appeals court is considered a steppingstone to the Supreme Court and is also viewed as a highly influential arbiter of many of Washington’s disputes over federal policy and separation of powers."
The Walker appointment, first to the federal bench in Kentucky and then to the second-highest court in the U.S., is typical of McConnell's drive to cement his legacy: appointment of extreme right-wing Trump appointments to U.S. federal courts (and young ones at that, who may continue to infect the country's judicial findings for the next 40 years).
But here's a new wrinkle to the poisonous McConnell legacy. Click here for an article in The New York Times by Carl Hulse, entitled "Appeals Court Vacancy Is Under Scrutiny Ahead of Contested Confirmation Hearing."
The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit publicly advanced a call by a progressive group for an ethics investigation into the circumstances of a plum vacancy.There's an allegation that McConnell may have contacted Judge Thomas B. Griffiths to get him to retire, opening a vacancy for Walker.
With the number of federal judicial vacancies to fill nearly exhausted, Mr. McConnell has been urging those contemplating retirement to step aside this year if they want to assure that their successors will be nominated by a Republican president and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate.Also:
"The coordinated manner of Majority Leader McConnell’s involvement in the judges’ decision-making is quite unprecedented and raises significant ethical questions for the judges who heed his advice,” the group said in its letter requesting an investigation. It said a “thorough inquiry into the judge’s announcement and scheduled retirement, including when and how the decision to retire was made, and with whose input, is crucial.”
Covid-19 Peaks in New York, not in U.S.
Incidence of the virus is on a downward path in New York, but no peak is yet apparent in the U.S. as a whole. Click here for an article at The New York Times by Julie Bosman, Mitch Smith and Amy Harmon, entitled "With New Hot Spots Emerging, No Sign of a Respite."
While cities like New York have seen a hopeful drop in cases, upticks in other major cities and smaller communities have offset those decreases.
Kevin Hassett's Record Of Being Wrong
Click here for an article at The New York Times by Paul Krugman, entitled "Trump and His Infallible Advisers," subtitled
"Beware men who never admit having been wrong." (Like Trump, for example.)
Kevin Hasset, a "former chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers," has emerged as Trump's champion for reopening the economy (at a cost of tens of thousands of lives).But Hassett is far from being alone among Trump's misguided economic advisers:
He first attracted widespread attention as co-author of a 1999 book claiming that stocks were greatly undervalued, and that the Dow should be 36,000 (which would be around 55,000 today, adjusting for inflation). It quickly became clear that there were major conceptual errors in that book; but Hassett never admitted error.
In the mid-2000s Hassett denied that there was a housing bubble, suggesting that only liberals believed that there was.
In 2010 Hassett was part of a group of conservative economists and pundits who warned in an open letter that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to rescue the economy would lead to currency debasement and inflation. Four years later Bloomberg News tried to reach signatories to ask why that inflation never materialized; not one was willing to admit having been wrong.
Finally, Hassett promised that the 2017 Trump tax cut would lead to a big boost in business investment; it didn’t, but he insisted that it did.
And Hassett isn’t even uniquely bad. Unlike, say, Stephen Moore, who Trump tried to put on the Federal Reserve Board, he does not, as far as I know, have a history of simply getting basic numbers and facts wrong.And, as for Trump:
Yes, Trump’s insecurity leads him to reject expertise, listen only to people who tell him what makes him feel good and refuse to acknowledge error. But disdain for experts, preference for incompetent loyalists and failure to learn from experience are standard operating procedure for the whole modern G.O.P.
Trump’s narcissism and solipsism are especially blatant, even flamboyant. But he isn’t an outlier; he’s more a culmination of the American right’s long-term trend toward intellectual degradation. And that degradation, more than Trump’s character, is what is leading to vast numbers of unnecessary deaths.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Covid-19 Response: Canada v. U.S. (Part 2)
Click here for an article at Hullabaloo by Tom Sullivan entitled "Read 'em and weep."
Canada is doing a measurably better job responding to the pandemic. Orders of magnitude better, writes Zack Beauchamp at Vox:Another quote from the article:
“We have a federal government that is supporting provinces’ responses,” says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. “You have a chief executive who is directly undermining the public health response.”
Unlike polarized state governors to the south, leaders in Canada’s provinces — Liberals and Conservatives — agreed on implementing extreme measures to halt the virus’ advance. The dysfunctional U.S. response is illustrated in the graph above that compares U.S. and Canadian COVID-19 cases per capita since the outbreak began. “The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives,” Beauchamp explains.
But at this point in the crisis, the worst you can say about the Canadian response is that it has been basically competent — what you would expect from a country with a functioning political and health care system. The United States, by contrast, hasn’t cleared this lowest of bars. Our lack of attention to public health, poorly designed national health care system, and deep political dysfunction have contributed to the greatest public health crisis of our lifetimes.
How Sad It Must Be
I saw this on Twitter but was unable to figure out where to attribute it:
How sad it must be -- believing that scientists, scholars, historians, economists, and journalists have devoted their entire lives to deceiving you, while a reality TV star with decades of fraud and exhaustively documented lying is your only beacon of truth and honesty.
Trump Battles Congressional Oversight
Click here for an article at The Daily 202 (a WaPo blog) by James Hohmann entitled "The Daily 202: White House moves to shield Trump from oversight of his coronavirus response."
The White House revealed on Monday that members of its coronavirus task force – and their deputies – are barred from testifying before Congress unless they get special permission from chief of staff Mark Meadows. The reason being given for blocking public health officials is that they’re busy trying to get control of a contagion that has now killed at least 68,172 and infected 1,175,000 Americans.There's much more about Trump's efforts to escape congressional oversight.
But this is just the latest in a growing list of power plays by President Trump to thwart congressional oversight and independent watchdogs from scrutinizing his administration’s response to the novel coronavirus and the way trillions of dollars are being distributed by the government.
A memo to congressional staff directors said this restriction on testimony also applies to the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and State. It decrees that committees are limited to no more than four virus-related hearings this month. “Given these competing demands in these unprecedented times, it is reasonable to expect that agencies will have to decline invitations to hearings to remain focused on implementing of COVID-19 response, including declining to participate in multiple hearings on the same or overlapping topics,” the memo states.
Last week, the White House blocked Tony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases official, from testifying before a House committee, which is controlled by Democrats. But Fauci received permission from Meadows to testify next week before the Senate’s health committee, which is controlled by Republicans.
Trump hinted at a more partisan motivation than the memo let on as he boarded Marine One on Tuesday morning, telling reporters that Fauci is not being allowed to testify before the House because its members are “Trump haters.” During his Fox News interview on Sunday night, the president grumbled that House Democrats are trying to embarrass him. “When you see all these committees, seven or eight committees, we haven’t even started, and they have all these committees looking for trouble, just looking for trouble,” Trump said at the Lincoln Memorial. “Every enemy I have is put on a Democrat committee.”
Democrats are outraged. “President Trump should learn that by muzzling science and the truth, it will only prolong this health and economic crisis,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The president’s failure to accept the truth, and then his desire to hide it, is one of the chief reasons we are lagging behind so many other countries in beating this scourge.”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Covid-19 Response: Canada v. U.S.
Click here for an article at Vox by Zack Beauchamp entitled "Canada succeeded on coronavirus where America failed. Why?" Lots of reasons -- not just Donald Trump's profound incompetence.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Trump's Multiple Lies On A Fox News Interview, May 3
Click here for an article at CNN by Daniel Dale, Marshall Cohen and Tara Subramaniam, entitled "Fact check: Trump peppers Fox News town hall with false claims on coronavirus and other topics."
Friday, May 1, 2020
A Collection Of Bushisms
Remember W? The guy who used to be the worst U.S. president in history? Here's a good list of his verbal stumbles, copied from Özkan Altay on Quora:
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”—Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
“Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”—Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004
“Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.”—declining to answer reporters’ questions at the Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001
“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”—Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001
“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”—Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”—Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
“I’ve heard he’s been called Bush’s poodle. He’s bigger than that.”—discussing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted by the Sun newspaper, June 27, 2007
“And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.”—meeting with Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008
“We ought to make the pie higher.”—South Carolina Republican debate, Feb. 15, 2000
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
“And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I’m sorry it’s the case, and I’ll work hard to try to elevate it.”—speaking on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007
“We’ll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers.”—Houston, Sept. 6, 2000
“It’s important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It’s not only life of babies, but it’s life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.”—Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000
“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”—U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 3, 2000
“People say, ‘How can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil?’ You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in’s house and say I love you.”—Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002
“Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness.”—CNN online chat, Aug. 30, 2000
“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend.”—on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005
“I think it’s really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to—the beauty of playing baseball.”—Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2006
“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
“You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one.”—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006
“There’s a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, ‘I don’t want you to let me down again.’ “—Boston, Oct. 3, 2000
“They misunderestimated me.”—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.”—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008
“The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there’s a lot of prayer — prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I’m one of them. It’s good to come down here.” — Sept. 3, 2008, at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
“Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the enemy – more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That's what I mean. There – it's – you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
“More and more of our imports come from overseas”.
"I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive." (Swings)
“The future will be better tomorrow”
“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
“We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”
“For NASA, space is still a high priority."
“It's time for the human race to enter the solar system”
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”—Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
“Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”—Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004
“Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.”—declining to answer reporters’ questions at the Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001
“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”—Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001
“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”—Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”—Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
“I’ve heard he’s been called Bush’s poodle. He’s bigger than that.”—discussing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted by the Sun newspaper, June 27, 2007
“And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.”—meeting with Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008
“We ought to make the pie higher.”—South Carolina Republican debate, Feb. 15, 2000
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
“And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I’m sorry it’s the case, and I’ll work hard to try to elevate it.”—speaking on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007
“We’ll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers.”—Houston, Sept. 6, 2000
“It’s important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It’s not only life of babies, but it’s life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.”—Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000
“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”—U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 3, 2000
“People say, ‘How can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil?’ You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in’s house and say I love you.”—Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002
“Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness.”—CNN online chat, Aug. 30, 2000
“I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend.”—on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005
“I think it’s really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to—the beauty of playing baseball.”—Washington, D.C., Feb. 13, 2006
“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
“You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one.”—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006
“There’s a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, ‘I don’t want you to let me down again.’ “—Boston, Oct. 3, 2000
“They misunderestimated me.”—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.”—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008
“The people in Louisiana must know that all across our country there’s a lot of prayer — prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down. And I’m one of them. It’s good to come down here.” — Sept. 3, 2008, at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., after Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
“Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the enemy – more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That's what I mean. There – it's – you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
“More and more of our imports come from overseas”.
"I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive." (Swings)
“The future will be better tomorrow”
“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
“We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”
“For NASA, space is still a high priority."
“It's time for the human race to enter the solar system”
Shockingly Inhumane Treatment Of Prisoners In El Salvador
Click here for an article at hrw.org (Human Rights Watch) entitled "El Salvador: Inhumane Prison Lockdown Treatment."
This is not a photo that was taken undercover and sneaked out of a San Salvador prison; President Nayib Bukele publicized the photo, bragging about his harsh treatment of "criminals and gang members."
This is not a photo that was taken undercover and sneaked out of a San Salvador prison; President Nayib Bukele publicized the photo, bragging about his harsh treatment of "criminals and gang members."
The crackdown on gangs came less than two weeks after Bukele dismissed multiple Supreme Court rulings that said that security forces couldn’t lawfully arrest people for breaking quarantine. Since he mandated a nationwide lockdown on March 21, hundreds of violators have been arrested and sent to “containment centers” where healthy individuals have been reportedly held with COVID-19 positive detainees in poor conditions. In the first month of the lockdown, El Salvador’s human rights ombudsmen received 778 complaints.
More Disgrace Heaped On Mitch McConnell
Click here for an article in The Washington Post by Colbert I. King entitled "McConnell bringing the Senate back is an irresponsible act of partisan selfishness."
McConnell is bringing the Senate into session next Monday, May 4. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is not convening the House. As King says, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), based upon guidance received from attending Capitol physician Brian Monahan, announced that House lawmakers will not return to Washington next week."
McConnell won't say whether he even consulted Dr. Monahan.
What is so important that the Senate must convene next week? Senate confirmation of more of Trump's nominees for federal judgeships, including 37-year-old Justin Walker.
McConnell is bringing the Senate into session next Monday, May 4. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is not convening the House. As King says, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), based upon guidance received from attending Capitol physician Brian Monahan, announced that House lawmakers will not return to Washington next week."
McConnell won't say whether he even consulted Dr. Monahan.
What is so important that the Senate must convene next week? Senate confirmation of more of Trump's nominees for federal judgeships, including 37-year-old Justin Walker.
A Kentucky native and McConnell protege, Walker was confirmed for a federal judgeship in western Kentucky in a party-line vote only last October, despite having been judged “not qualified” by the American Bar Association, which cited his insufficient legal experience. Undeterred, Trump then nominated Walker to the second-most powerful court in the land, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. McConnell’s mission is to make it happen.McConnell, who denied even a hearing for Merrick Garland, Obama's nominee for SCOTUS following the death of Antonin Scalia with 11 months remaining in Obama's term of office, sees appointing partisan Republican judges -- especially young ones like Walker, who will conceivably be exercising their right-wing political views for the next 40 years -- as his legacy issue. Good luck to minorities and labor unions with their court decisions for the next 40 years.
Trump Snapshots
Here's a tweet by The Washington Post's Philip Rucker on April 30, 2020:
Since the U.S. death toll surpassed 60,000 yesterday, Trump has tweeted about:And here's a quote from an article dated May 1 by NewsHound Ellen at Crooks & Liars, entitled "Trump Boasts: ‘Our Death Totals … Are Really Very, Very Strong’":
-Michael Flynn
-CNN
-MSNBC
-Brian Williams
-Don Lemon
-Joe Scarborough
-Sweden
-Roger Stone
-His poll numbers
-Jim Comey
-Hillary Clinton’s campaign
-Rep. Jim Ryun’s birthday
On the day that the U.S. death total from the coronavirus pandemic topped 60,000 and remains the highest in the world, Donald Trump boasted that nobody’s done a better job than he.From an interview with Steve Holland of Reuters:
TRUMP: I don’t think anybody’s done a better job -- with testing, with ventilators, with all of the things that we’ve done. And our death totals — our numbers per million people — are really very, very strong. We’re very proud of the job we’ve done.”
"I don't believe the polls," Trump said. "I believe the people of this country are smart. And I don't think that they will put a man in who's incompetent."Sorry, Donald. That ship has sailed. Or, as Stephen Colbert put it:
"You're right; the people of this country wouldn't. The Electoral College, on the other hand -- they're fine with it."
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Ezra Klein Sums Up The Trump Presidency
A tweet from Ezra Klein:
Donald Trump does not want to be in charge of any of this. He wants to play president on TV. He doesn't want responsibility for governance in a time of crisis, and in every way he can, he's refusing to do that job, and lashing out at those who ask him to do it.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
The Onion Nailed Trump A Month Ago
Click here for an article by Ed Scarce at Crooks & Liars entitled "The Onion's Prescient Column On Trump Promoting Ingesting Cleaning Products."
Here's the article from The Onion, dated March 25, 2020, subtitled "Man Just Buying One Of Every Cleaning Product In Case Trump Announces It’s Coronavirus Cure":
Here's the article from The Onion, dated March 25, 2020, subtitled "Man Just Buying One Of Every Cleaning Product In Case Trump Announces It’s Coronavirus Cure":
EVANSTON, WY—Throwing bottles of bleach, ammonia, and Drano into a cart at his local grocery store, area man Troy Mitchell was reportedly stocking up on one of every cleaning product he could find Wednesday in case President Donald Trump announces it is a coronavirus cure. “I got toilet bowl cleaner, carpet cleaner, Swiffer WetJet refills—you name it—just so me and my family will be ready if the president announces one of these things can treat Chinese virus,” said Mitchell, indiscriminately throwing containers of laundry detergent, Scrubbing Bubbles, grout whitener, steel wool, Febreze, Tilex mold and mildew remover, and laptop screen wipes into the cart, the contents of which rang up to $2,513.67 at checkout. “I’m not getting caught without some oven degreaser should Trump say it’s going to save us, so I better go ahead and grab me a bottle. After this, I’m hitting the hardware store to pick up a 5-gallon bucket of roof sealant to make sure I’m prepared in the event that turns out to be what gets rid of the Wuhan. Could just be 10 or 20 squirts of Windex into each nostril. You never know what might work in a pinch!” At press time, neighbors confirmed Mitchell had been found unresponsive on the floor of his bathroom with several empty aerosol cans of Rust-Oleum wax-and-tar-removing solvent by his head.
Trump (Republicans) v. Post Office
Click here for an article at The Plum Line in The Washington Post by Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent entitled "Trump’s new rage attack on the post office could hurt his voters most." Read the whole article to see what Trump and the Republicans are trying to do to the Post Office. Here are some excerpts:
President Trump is trying to kill the U.S. Postal Service — or at least make it submit to his will.
The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump said, launching into a sneering list of complaints, including his common and false contention that it loses money by delivering for Amazon.com.
It’s true that the agency has a financial problem. In 2006, Congress passed a law requiring the USPS — unlike any other government agency or private company — to prepay 75 years’ worth of employee retirement benefits, which costs billions every year. Without this, its operating losses would be a fraction.
Not only that, the Postal Service is the only government agency that we demand turn a profit.
But despite its losses, the Postal Service remains America’s most beloved federal agency, with overwhelming majorities viewing it favorably and believing it does a good or excellent job.
Whether you live in Manhattan or in a remote stretch of North Dakota, the Postal Service will deliver your mail — not for the $25 or $30 UPS or FedEx will charge for a letter, but for 55 cents.
This is crucial, because the Postal Service is structured precisely so that it can do things like treat people in rural areas (where mail is more expensive to deliver) equally to people who are closer to metropolitan areas and/or who benefit from more options such as UPS or FedEx.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
"Grassroot" Protests? Not So Much
Click here for an article in The Washington Post, by By
Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm, entitled "The anti-quarantine protests seem spontaneous. But behind the scenes, a powerful network is helping."
Surprise, surprise. Behind these "spontaneous" demonstrations are a network of right-wing organizations undermining restrictions that medical experts say are necessary to contain the coronavirus, many headed by people who were prominent in the equally well-organized and well-funded Tea Party movement.
Surprise, surprise. Behind these "spontaneous" demonstrations are a network of right-wing organizations undermining restrictions that medical experts say are necessary to contain the coronavirus, many headed by people who were prominent in the equally well-organized and well-funded Tea Party movement.
A network of right-leaning individuals and groups, aided by nimble online outfits, has helped incubate the fervor erupting in state capitals across the country. The activism is often organic and the frustration deeply felt, but it is also being amplified, and in some cases coordinated, by longtime conservative activists, whose robust operations were initially set up with help from Republican megadonors.One such organization, "Convention of States," was "launched in 2015 with a high-dollar donation from the family foundation of Robert Mercer, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Republican patron. It boasts past support from two members of the Trump administration — Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development."
Brulle [a sociological researcher] said the blowback against the coronavirus precautions carries echoes of efforts to deny climate change, both of which rely on hostility toward government action.
“These are extreme right-wing efforts to delegitimize government,” he said. “It’s an anti-government crusade.”
Monday, April 20, 2020
On Behalf Of All Us Potted Plants!
Patricia Nilsen posted this on Facebook by Amy Wojkowski, a court reporter from Huntington Beach, California:
Here are the lyrics:
I want to lug my equipment up five narrow flights of stairs
Into a room with no outlet in sight
And sit down in the planet’s most uncomfortable armchair
Then skip the breaks and work into the night
And I won’t care as long as it means that I have pages to turn in
No, I won’t care, I want to be a potted plant again
I’m ready for a fight with six attorneys
Even if it’s only O and One
Let’s do nine hours of expert testimony
A fast-talking Brazilian would be fun
I’m looking forward to a hostile witness
It’s more fun than the one that always cries
(I’ll keep) hoping the deponent doesn’t notice
When I struggle not to laugh at all their lies
Then if I’m packing up my gear to grab a bite to eat
Before I scope tomorrow’s expedite
I will not bat an eye when plaintiff’s counsel comes to me
And says they’ll need a rough draft by tonight
It’s crazy all the little things I never thought I’d miss
I’d even spend a day in a courtroom
But if this pandemic taught me anything it’s this
Depos just don’t work the same on Zoom
And I won’t care as long as it means that I have pages to turn in
No, I won’t care, I want to be a potted plant again
Talk over each other while you rattle off some numbers
If it means this court reporter will finally get some orders
I just can’t wait to begin, to be a potted plant again
Here are the lyrics:
I want to lug my equipment up five narrow flights of stairs
Into a room with no outlet in sight
And sit down in the planet’s most uncomfortable armchair
Then skip the breaks and work into the night
And I won’t care as long as it means that I have pages to turn in
No, I won’t care, I want to be a potted plant again
I’m ready for a fight with six attorneys
Even if it’s only O and One
Let’s do nine hours of expert testimony
A fast-talking Brazilian would be fun
I’m looking forward to a hostile witness
It’s more fun than the one that always cries
(I’ll keep) hoping the deponent doesn’t notice
When I struggle not to laugh at all their lies
Then if I’m packing up my gear to grab a bite to eat
Before I scope tomorrow’s expedite
I will not bat an eye when plaintiff’s counsel comes to me
And says they’ll need a rough draft by tonight
It’s crazy all the little things I never thought I’d miss
I’d even spend a day in a courtroom
But if this pandemic taught me anything it’s this
Depos just don’t work the same on Zoom
And I won’t care as long as it means that I have pages to turn in
No, I won’t care, I want to be a potted plant again
Talk over each other while you rattle off some numbers
If it means this court reporter will finally get some orders
I just can’t wait to begin, to be a potted plant again
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Trump's Shameful Performance Is Costing American Lives
It remains to be seen, but it looks as though Trump's incompetence may end up making America's response the worst in the world.
The following is a complete comment made by pgerlings, in reply to an article in the Boston Globe by Michael A. Cohen (not Trump's lawyer, but a regular Globe columnist) entitled "The incredible shrinking president":
The following is a complete comment made by pgerlings, in reply to an article in the Boston Globe by Michael A. Cohen (not Trump's lawyer, but a regular Globe columnist) entitled "The incredible shrinking president":
It cannot be overstated just how bad of a job the trump administration is doing at keeping Americans safe from this virus. Relative to the rest of the world, both the case rate and the fatality rates are growing at far higher levels, and consistently so.
Through this morning, here are the cumulative growth rates in total cases from March 23 through this morning according to the data at the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 website:
US: 1215%
Belgium: 771%
Japan: 720%
France: 630%
Netherlands: 449%
Spain: 378%
Germany: 329%
Iran: 220%
Italy: 149%
South Korea: 18%
China: 3%
World: 440%
The growth rate in new cases in the US is so much higher than the rest of the world, to the point where more than 30% of new cases is identified worldwide have occurred in the United States, even through the US makes up only 4% of the world's population. Worse, our growth rate is almost 3 times higher than the world total, even though we make up an ever increasing portion of that total.apan: 720%
When we look at the growth rate in fatalities, it's even worse. Again, these data are current through this morning and represent the growth rates seen since March 23.
US: 5152%
Belgium: 4370%
Germany: 2672%
France: 1745%
Netherlands: 1149%
Spain: 612%
Japan: 342%
Italy: 234%
Iran: 156%
South Korea: 93%
China: 2%
World: 731%
These numbers are mind boggling. While there are other countries having similar challenges (Belgium, for example), the US again leads the world and is growing at a much faster rate! Back on March 24, the US made up about 12% of the world's fatalities; yesterday it was at 42%.
The most striking comparison is against South Korea.
On January 20th, both the US and Korea reported their first local cases of the virus. Today, the US total case load is a staggering 700,000 versus "just" 10,600 in South Korea, a nearly 70-1 ratio.
Both countries have had the same amount of time to prepare for this. Both countries relied on the same data from the WHO. And yet the US has suffered 70 times more disease than South Korea, and it's still early days! Worse yet, the growth differential keeps getting worse. Every single day since March 23 has seen the US case load growing faster than the world as a whole. We still lag most of these countries as it relates to testing as a percent of the total population, as well as those who show symptoms (a great many Americans are dying and not being counted in the totals).
It is simply astonishing how many Americans will tragically, needlessly perish because of Trump's stunning mismanagement of this. Sure there is blame to go around, but none more than the White House, whose track record is the bottom of the barrel compared to just about every other country out there.
It is because of this that trump is trying so hard to distract Americans. He knows he is failing Americans, and that many of his own constituents are at risk. So he is trying to change the subject.
Don't let him.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Wisconsin Election Abomination
Wisconsin held a Democratic primary election (Biden v. Sanders, with Biden a heavy favorite and the result not really in doubt) on April 7, 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Ten other states that were scheduled to hold primaries in early April had pushed the dates until later in the year, when the worst of the pandemic was expected to have passed, but the Republican House and Senate in Wisconsin refused to change the date -- in the face of heavy Democratic opposition.
The Democratic governor of the state took executive action at the last minute -- Saturday, April 4, in a special session -- to order the election postponed. The Republicans controlling the House and Senate immediately appealed to the Republican Supreme Court of Wisconsin to overturn the action, and were successful; it was ordered on Monday, April 6, that the election proceed the next day.
To top it off, also on Monday, April 6, the day before the election, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (that is, the Kavanaugh Court) ruled to overturn a Wisconsin move that mail-in absentee ballots be accepted beyond the 8 p.m. Tuesday closing of the polls, although by that time the election staff, overwhelmed by unprecedented requests for 1.2 million mail-in ballots, had not even finished sending them out.
All this was naked partisanship on the part of Wisconsin Republicans to force the election to be held during the height of the pandemic and therefore to suppress large numbers of votes. The reason they were so desperate to suppress the vote as much as possible was that on the same ballot as the Democratic primary, another choice on the ticket was between a Democratic challenger and an extreme conservative Republican incumbent for a seat on the State Supreme Court (thereby hoping to maintain the conservative Republican 5-2 majority). Republicans feared that under normal circumstances, hundreds of thousands of voters would turn out to vote for their Democratic presidential candidate -- and while they were there would pull the lever for the Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
The election went ahead, and it was a disgrace -- particularly in Milwaukee, the largest city in the state, where the electorate is only 35% white, but 40% black and 20% Hispanic or Latino. In the previous state election, Milwaukee, with a population of about 600,000, had 180 polling places; this time there were 5. Madison, Wisconsin, with a population of about 260,000, had 92 polling sites during the last election; this time, it had 66.
66 polling sites for a city of 260,000 and 5 for a city of 600,000? What's going on here? Republican election officials claimed that they could not find enough poll workers willing to risk their health to man the polling sites, but that was a lie; there were a great number of emails and tweets from people expressing their outrage at the decision and a willingness to serve as poll workers.
The election in Wisconsin on April 7 was a travesty, a shameful episode in the history of the state. The Republican majority in the House and Senate deserve to be overwhelmingly defeated in the next election.
The Democratic governor of the state took executive action at the last minute -- Saturday, April 4, in a special session -- to order the election postponed. The Republicans controlling the House and Senate immediately appealed to the Republican Supreme Court of Wisconsin to overturn the action, and were successful; it was ordered on Monday, April 6, that the election proceed the next day.
To top it off, also on Monday, April 6, the day before the election, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (that is, the Kavanaugh Court) ruled to overturn a Wisconsin move that mail-in absentee ballots be accepted beyond the 8 p.m. Tuesday closing of the polls, although by that time the election staff, overwhelmed by unprecedented requests for 1.2 million mail-in ballots, had not even finished sending them out.
All this was naked partisanship on the part of Wisconsin Republicans to force the election to be held during the height of the pandemic and therefore to suppress large numbers of votes. The reason they were so desperate to suppress the vote as much as possible was that on the same ballot as the Democratic primary, another choice on the ticket was between a Democratic challenger and an extreme conservative Republican incumbent for a seat on the State Supreme Court (thereby hoping to maintain the conservative Republican 5-2 majority). Republicans feared that under normal circumstances, hundreds of thousands of voters would turn out to vote for their Democratic presidential candidate -- and while they were there would pull the lever for the Democratic Supreme Court candidate.
The election went ahead, and it was a disgrace -- particularly in Milwaukee, the largest city in the state, where the electorate is only 35% white, but 40% black and 20% Hispanic or Latino. In the previous state election, Milwaukee, with a population of about 600,000, had 180 polling places; this time there were 5. Madison, Wisconsin, with a population of about 260,000, had 92 polling sites during the last election; this time, it had 66.
66 polling sites for a city of 260,000 and 5 for a city of 600,000? What's going on here? Republican election officials claimed that they could not find enough poll workers willing to risk their health to man the polling sites, but that was a lie; there were a great number of emails and tweets from people expressing their outrage at the decision and a willingness to serve as poll workers.
The election in Wisconsin on April 7 was a travesty, a shameful episode in the history of the state. The Republican majority in the House and Senate deserve to be overwhelmingly defeated in the next election.
Kushner Shenanigans, Colorado
Jared Kusher rarely speaks, but he did so at the daily Trump Show on April 2. First, he said, "Very early this morning, I got a call from the president. He told me he was hearing from friends of his in New York that the New York public hospital system was running low on critical supply." As a result, he said, New York was receiving 4,000 respirators from the national stockpile.
Ooookaaay, so that's how the national stockpile of respirators is distributed? When the president hears from his friends that respirators are needed? Trump is surrounded by medical experts who can tell him where equipment needs to be allocated, but it takes calls from his friends to get him to act?
But Kushner continued, and he mystified people by saying: ""You also have a situation where in some states, FEMA allocated ventilators to the states and you have instances where in cities they’re running out, but the state still has a stockpile and the notion of the federal stockpile was, it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use."
WTF? Kushner left the press conference without facing questions about his statement, so he left reporters and pundits scratching their heads: The federal stockpile is supposed to be "their" stockpile? Who the hell is "they"? It's not for the states to use? How can that possibly make any sense?
The generally accepted purpose of a national stockpile of devices such as respirators is that such a stockpile is maintained by the federal government for the purpose of distributing to states as they are needed -- but not under the Trump administration, which refuses to take responsibility for the distribution of respirators, probably in an attempt to dodge negative press resulting from poor management of the process, shoving the blame, if blame there is to be, to the individual governors.
The way it is now, Trump's administration stays out of the process, and governors of states that need respirators are expected to go out into the public marketplace and bid against other states, hospitals, or other entities in the market for respirators. That's what Jared Polis, Democratic governor of Colorado, did. He was able to find a company willing to provide Colorado with 500 respirators that would be available soon. A contract was signed. So all will be well -- right?
Well, maybe not. At that point, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) jumped into action. I'm used to thinking of FEMA as a good guy, but now that it's under Kushner's direction, not so much. FEMA proceeded to exercise force majeure and override Governor Polis's signed contract on the grounds that this was a federal emergency and FEMA took precedence. Which is true; FEMA was acting within its authority, and Polis had no recourse. He could only fume in anger as FEMA stole his respirators.
It soon became clearer what Kushner meant when he was talking about "our stockpile." On April 8, Trump tweeted, "Will be immediately sending 100 Ventilators to Colorado at the request of Senator Gardner!" [exclamation point emphasis Trump's, not mine.}
So to considerable fanfare, Trump grandly dispensed 100 (not 500) respirators to hard-hit Colorado, loudly crediting a Republican senator, Cory Gardner. Respirators taken from the 500 Polis ordered and FEMA hijacked.
Thanks so much to our wonderful President Trump and far-seeing Republican Senator Gardner!
Click here for an article from the editorial board of The Denver Post entitled "Trump is playing a disgusting political game with our lives." According to the article:
Ooookaaay, so that's how the national stockpile of respirators is distributed? When the president hears from his friends that respirators are needed? Trump is surrounded by medical experts who can tell him where equipment needs to be allocated, but it takes calls from his friends to get him to act?
But Kushner continued, and he mystified people by saying: ""You also have a situation where in some states, FEMA allocated ventilators to the states and you have instances where in cities they’re running out, but the state still has a stockpile and the notion of the federal stockpile was, it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use."
WTF? Kushner left the press conference without facing questions about his statement, so he left reporters and pundits scratching their heads: The federal stockpile is supposed to be "their" stockpile? Who the hell is "they"? It's not for the states to use? How can that possibly make any sense?
The generally accepted purpose of a national stockpile of devices such as respirators is that such a stockpile is maintained by the federal government for the purpose of distributing to states as they are needed -- but not under the Trump administration, which refuses to take responsibility for the distribution of respirators, probably in an attempt to dodge negative press resulting from poor management of the process, shoving the blame, if blame there is to be, to the individual governors.
The way it is now, Trump's administration stays out of the process, and governors of states that need respirators are expected to go out into the public marketplace and bid against other states, hospitals, or other entities in the market for respirators. That's what Jared Polis, Democratic governor of Colorado, did. He was able to find a company willing to provide Colorado with 500 respirators that would be available soon. A contract was signed. So all will be well -- right?
Well, maybe not. At that point, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) jumped into action. I'm used to thinking of FEMA as a good guy, but now that it's under Kushner's direction, not so much. FEMA proceeded to exercise force majeure and override Governor Polis's signed contract on the grounds that this was a federal emergency and FEMA took precedence. Which is true; FEMA was acting within its authority, and Polis had no recourse. He could only fume in anger as FEMA stole his respirators.
It soon became clearer what Kushner meant when he was talking about "our stockpile." On April 8, Trump tweeted, "Will be immediately sending 100 Ventilators to Colorado at the request of Senator Gardner!" [exclamation point emphasis Trump's, not mine.}
So to considerable fanfare, Trump grandly dispensed 100 (not 500) respirators to hard-hit Colorado, loudly crediting a Republican senator, Cory Gardner. Respirators taken from the 500 Polis ordered and FEMA hijacked.
Thanks so much to our wonderful President Trump and far-seeing Republican Senator Gardner!
Click here for an article from the editorial board of The Denver Post entitled "Trump is playing a disgusting political game with our lives." According to the article:
President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives. For the good of this nation during what should be a time of unity, he must stop.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Trump Dilemma: Goose Economy Or Maintain Shutdown?
If he gooses the economy by getting people back to work, Covid-19 will surely come roaring back and he'll be accused of killing people to improve things economically and increase his election chances; if he maintains the lockdown (the course recommended by the medical experts), unemployment could exceed 30% and he'll face the election with the economy devastated.
What to do, what to do? Poor Donald. As president, he is believed to be protected from indictment for criminal conduct; if he loses the election, what are the chances of an indictment? Excellent, says Michael J. Stern, a federal prosecutor for 24 years.
Click here for an article by Stern in The Hill, entitled "Trump's self-interest is at odds with safe coronavirus policy."
Click here for an article by Stern in The Hill, entitled "Trump's self-interest is at odds with safe coronavirus policy."
While the immediate danger of Trump’s wish for “packed” public events has passed, it is a mistake to think he finally respects the health risk posed by this virus and is committed to doing all he can to mitigate it. It should not be long before Trump redirects his effort to resume the course he previously charted: people back to work and a growing economy, despite the human toll.
With any other president, we could default to the belief that he has the country’s best interests at heart. But if a Trump presidency has taught us anything, it is that Donald Trump’s first allegiance is — and always will be — to himself. Instead of using this existential crisis to bring people together, Trump has tried to take down anyone who criticizes his botched response to the pandemic, while simultaneously heaping undeserved praise on himself.
Trump absolved his failure to supply hospitals with adequate medical supplies by repeatedly implying that exhausted healthcare workers were stealing surgical masks (and apparently selling them on the black market).
And always looking to leverage a quid pro quo — in deed if not in word — Trump suggested that governors should withhold any criticism and instead be publicly “appreciative” in order to get life-saving federal medical supplies for their hospitalized citizens.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Monday, April 6, 2020
Trump Administration Report On Hospital Readiness: Chaos
Click here for an article at Crooks & Liars by Susie Madrak entitled "Inspector General Report: Our Health Care System in a State of Chaos." Bear in mind, this is a report by Ann Maxwell, Health and Human Services Assistant Inspector General in Trump's administration (nowadays known as "Dead Man Walking," her government career almost certainly at an end). Maxwell is being interviewed by reporter Ken Dilanian for a segment on Stephanie Ruhle's program on MSNBC.
UPDATE: At today's "press briefing" (a.k.a. Trump's daily dose of self-congratulation), a reporter tried to question Trump about the report, but he blew it off. His response, according to an article at CNN: "'Give me the name of the inspector general. Could politics be entered into that?' Trump said, indulging another troubling trait, the singling out of public officials that he deems insufficiently loyal to him personally." Here's another reference, at CNN.com, to that question by the reporter:
And although the segment above was an interview of Maxwell, the CNN article goes on to say "The report was written by the principal deputy inspector general for the department, Christi Grimm. According to her official biography, Grimm, who has worked for multiple administrations, is an award-winning public servant with "two decades of leadership and expertise in health and human services programs." So Grimm's career may well be on the line as well. Watch this space.
Stephanie Ruhle introduced a segment with Ken Dilanian on a new internal assessment of how the Trump administration has done in helping the country's health care workers.Click above to watch a short (2:07) video clip of that portion of the interview.
"Explain what is this all about. Day in and day out, we hear from the administration saying the hospitals have all that they need. At the same time, hospital workers and state governors are saying that's not the case," she said.
"Stephanie, this is a report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. So a watchdog but within the Trump administration," Delanian said.
"And what they did was, they interviewed 324 hospital administrators in 46 states. And what they found was a health care system in a state of chaos. Totally refuting the comments by President Trump on Saturday that he said hospital administrators were thrilled with the level of supplies. This report creates a picture of dire shortages, confirming what NBC News and other outlets have reported about shortages of ventilators and masks.
"Also going further and saying in some cases, shortages of cleaning supplies and even thermometers. One case they talked about a hospital, 700 staff and two thermometers. The hospital officials are worried about the health and safety of their own workers. They're concerned about their finances. We interviewed Ann Maxwell, the assistant inspector general. She seemed genuinely stunned with some of what her team found. Let's take a listen." ANN MAXWELL: I think one moment that stands out for me is when I was talking to a hospital administrator, and he told me he had staff in the hospital out trying to procure masks and gloves from auto part shops, from home supply stores, from beauty salons, art supply stores. And I was just taken aback by how in that one example you could see both the desperation, the challenges they're facing, and ingenuity they were putting forward in trying to solve these problems to provide good patient care and save lives.
"In some cases, Stephanie, what this report found is -- federal and state stockpiles were defective. They got a shipment of masks for children and 1,000 had dry rot. So big problems with the federal response and hospital administrators are begging the federal government to do more," Delanian said.
UPDATE: At today's "press briefing" (a.k.a. Trump's daily dose of self-congratulation), a reporter tried to question Trump about the report, but he blew it off. His response, according to an article at CNN: "'Give me the name of the inspector general. Could politics be entered into that?' Trump said, indulging another troubling trait, the singling out of public officials that he deems insufficiently loyal to him personally." Here's another reference, at CNN.com, to that question by the reporter:
Trump also dismissed the reporter, Fox News correspondent Kristin Fisher. "Testing is still a big issue in this country," she said as he sighed. "When can hospitals expect to receive a quick turnaround of these test results?" Trump, agitated, said hospitals and states "are supposed to be doing the testing," sidestepping her question and shifting blame away from the federal government. After making some false claims, Trump told Fisher, "You should say 'congratulations, great job,' instead of being so horrid in the way you ask a question."
And although the segment above was an interview of Maxwell, the CNN article goes on to say "The report was written by the principal deputy inspector general for the department, Christi Grimm. According to her official biography, Grimm, who has worked for multiple administrations, is an award-winning public servant with "two decades of leadership and expertise in health and human services programs." So Grimm's career may well be on the line as well. Watch this space.
Max Boot: "The worst president. Ever."
Click here for an article in The Washington Post By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, entitled "The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged," subtitled "From the Oval Office to the CDC, political and institutional failures cascaded through the system and opportunities to mitigate the pandemic were lost."
Click here for another article in WaPo by Max Boot, entitled "The worst president. Ever," in which Boot says, "The Post article [above] is the most thorough dissection of Trump’s failure to prepare for the gathering storm."
It didn't have to happen this way, says the WsPo article: "Though not perfectly prepared, the United States had more expertise, resources, plans and epidemiological experience than dozens of countries that ultimately fared far better in fending off the virus"; "Warnings were sounded, including at the highest levels of government, but the president was deaf to them until the enemy had already struck."
The article concluded:
Click here for another article in WaPo by Max Boot, entitled "The worst president. Ever," in which Boot says, "The Post article [above] is the most thorough dissection of Trump’s failure to prepare for the gathering storm."
It didn't have to happen this way, says the WsPo article: "Though not perfectly prepared, the United States had more expertise, resources, plans and epidemiological experience than dozens of countries that ultimately fared far better in fending off the virus"; "Warnings were sounded, including at the highest levels of government, but the president was deaf to them until the enemy had already struck."
The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.Republicans, many believing the story that the whole thing was a "Democrat hoax" to bring down the president after impeachment had failed, were influenced by "scornful coverage on Fox News and other conservative networks. As a result, Republicans were in distressingly large numbers refusing to change travel plans, follow “social distancing” guidelines, stock up on supplies or otherwise take the coronavirus threat seriously."
And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered.
The article concluded:
In reality, many of the failures to stem the coronavirus outbreak in the United States were either a result of, or exacerbated by, his leadership.I've only scratched the surface. The article, "which retraces the failures over the first 70 days of the coronavirus crisis, is based on 47 interviews with administration officials, public health experts, intelligence officers and others involved in fighting the pandemic. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and decisions." The whole article is well worth reading.
For weeks, he had barely uttered a word about the crisis that didn’t downplay its severity or propagate demonstrably false information. He dismissed the warnings of intelligence officials and top public health officials in his administration.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Flatten The Curve - South Korea
The U.S. and South Korea diagnosed the first case of Covid-19 on the same day. Their governments reacted a little differently. Here's the graph of the spread of the virus in South Korea:
On April 5, Max Boot wrote, in a WaPo article entitled "The Worst President. Ever," wrote:
On April 5, Max Boot wrote, in a WaPo article entitled "The Worst President. Ever," wrote:
South Korea and the United States discovered their first cases on the same day. South Korea now has 183 dead — or 4 deaths per 1 million people. The U.S. death ratio (25 per 1 million) is six times worse — and rising quickly.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Zoom video
Click here for an article at CNBC by Jordan Novet entitled "How to Host a Zoom Call Like a Pro."
How To Access Your Wi-Fi Router's Settings
Type ipconfig in the command prompt and press Enter to run the command. Scroll until you see a setting for Default Gateway under Ethernet or Wi-Fi. That's your router, and the number next to it is your router's IP address. Now type your router's IP address in your browser's address field and press Enter.
Windows 10 Product Key - Asus; Creating A Recovery Drive
Here is my 25-digit product key for Windows 10 on my Asus notebook:
B2QNW-7XXXJ-8W9PM-WRDB6-4M47F
This key is needed to create a Windows 10 system recovery drive; if I ever need to re-install Windows, I will likely need to enter a product key.
CREATING A RECOVERY DRIVE
B2QNW-7XXXJ-8W9PM-WRDB6-4M47F
This key is needed to create a Windows 10 system recovery drive; if I ever need to re-install Windows, I will likely need to enter a product key.
CREATING A RECOVERY DRIVE
Booting from a recovery USB drive allows you to perform basic troubleshooting and repairs, and to use Windows’ automatic troubleshooter utility. If you include the Windows 10 system files on your recovery drive, you can boot from that drive and re-install Windows 10 if necessary.
A basic recovery drive needs only 512 MB of space, but if you plan to copy the system files to the recovery drive it should have at least 16 GB of total space. The USB drive will be formatted during creation of the recovery drive, so move any data you wish to preserve.
Enter “Create a recovery drive” in the Search box to find the shortcut that leads to the recovery media creator tool. When the tool starts, the option “Back up system files to the recovery drive” will be checked. Uncheck it if you want just a basic recovery drive. Then insert a USB drive in a port and click Next in the tool’s window. Follow the prompts and soon you will have a recovery drive. Label the flash drive and keep it in a safe place.
If you don't have an OEM (vendor-supplied) recovery partition, you can add Windows 10 installation files to the recovery drive by downloading the Windows 10 Media Creation tool, using it to create an ISO file, double-clicking to mount the ISO file in Explorer, and then dragging the complete contents of the mounted drive to your recovery drive.
You won’t miss your recovery drive until it’s desperately needed, and then it will be too late. So take the time to make one while you don’t need it. If your Windows 10 system somehow gets borked, insert your recovery drive, reboot your computer, and follow the prompts to recover.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Presidential Gaslighting
Click here for an article by Ian Schwartz at Real Clear Politics on March 19 entitled "Don Lemon: Trump Is Gaslighting You On Coronavirus, Has Politicized The Pandemic Since The Beginning." He quotes Don Lemon from his program on CNN. Lemon says:
"The President of the United States is gaslighting you, and you deserve to know."Later on, the article says:
LEMON: Like I said, this is gaslighting pure and simple. The President of the United States has been making demonstrably false statements from the beginning of all of this at a time when real leadership could have saved lives.Here's omething from the article that I found shocking:
He caused a lot of people to think that this virus wasn't a serious threat. We now know it is. He suggested that it was less dangerous than the flu, not true. He claimed it was a hoax by Democrats, not true. He claimed it was well under control, not true.
He made fun of it at rallies. He went to CPAC, there was a person there who had it. Caused Republican lawmakers and others to have to self-quarantine. They made fun of it. They wore gas masks.
Causing all kinds of people to believe that it was a media hoax and not take it seriously. All of that caused a lot of people to think the virus wasn't a serious threat. Caused us to lose a lot of precious time while our government wasn't taking the threat seriously.
The sad fact is the president is the one who has been politicizing this. Don't get it twisted, and don't fall for that whole thing about everyone is politicizing this. Don't politicize this, Don. Stop politicizing this.
That is why I get so angry because the president is the one who's politicizing this, and then trying to do that whole okey-doke blaming the media and saying the media is politicizing it. No, we're just giving you the information, and he doesn't like it so he's politicizing it. That is dangerous.
The latest NPR/PBS/Marist poll show the partisan divide is growing. Seventy-six percent of Democrats say coronavirus is a real threat. Fifty percent of independents feel the same way, but only 40 percent of Republicans agree.This can have disastrous consequences. An article in The Washington Post by Dana Milbank entitled "Trump’s late conversion to reality leaves out his supporters" says:
Naturally, they’re not so inclined to cooperate with efforts to slow the virus’s spread. Only 30 percent of Republicans plan to avoid large gatherings (vs. 61 percent of Democrats), a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found just before Trump proposed such limits. Republicans were half as likely to say they were rescheduling travel and a third as likely to stop eating out at restaurants.
Key Trump allies aren’t cooperating, either. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) recommended on Monday: “If you want to go to Bob Evans and eat, go to Bob Evans and eat.”
Also Monday, Ron Paul, the former presidential candidate and father of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said, “People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus ‘pandemic’ could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated.”
On Sunday, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik — recently pardoned by Trump — speculated that “this hysteria is being created” to “destroy” Trump’s economic success. And Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a key Trump ally, said “it’s a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant. … Go to your local pub.” (He later tried awkwardly to recant that advice.)
Then there’s Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who tweeted (and later deleted) a photo of him and his children at a “packed” food hall (Trump expressed his disagreement); Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), tweeting a photo of a freshly poured Corona beer at a restaurant and the message “Be smart. Don’t Panic”; and former Milwaukee County, Wis., sheriff David Clarke, once considered for a senior Trump administration job, who speculated that George Soros may be behind the virus panic and suggested: “GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls … ”
Trump Propaganda
Trump is spreading propaganda by means of his (for now) daily press briefing. He babbles about generalities, touts "new medical breakthroughs" that are completely bogus (like chloroquine, which is effective against malaria, a parasite-based disease and in no way related to disease spread by viruses), and glosses over the failure to provide protective equipment for health care personnel like gloves, masks, and respirators. But as Charlie Pierce says, in an article at Esquire entitled "It's Time to Quarantine the Crazy Coming Out of the White House":
"But the presser didn’t go zooming off the rails until a “reporter” named Chanel Rion from One America News, the outlet that the president* watches when Fox News gets too Chomsky for him, chimed in from the izonkosphere.Charlie points out that the problem is that someone insists on telling Trump the place and time the briefing is to be held.
On that note, major left-wing media, including some in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives and they're claiming you’re a racist for making these claims about Chinese virus. Is it alarming that major media who just oppose you are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels, and they work right here in the White House with direct access to you and your team?"
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Republican Stragegist: It Was All A Lie
Click here for an article in The Washington Post by Stuart Stevens, Republican strategist for dozens of congressmen, senators, and governors, and chief strategist for Mitt Romney in his 2012 presidential campaign. the article is titled "Republicans like me built this moment. Then we looked the other way." Stevens is publishing a book next month titled "It Was All A Lie."
Don’t just blame President Trump. Blame me — and all the other Republicans who aided and abetted and, yes, benefited from protecting a political party that has become dangerous to America. Some of us knew better.Stevens says the Republican party has become anti-intellectual:
But we built this moment. And then we looked the other way.
Many of us heard a warning sound we chose to ignore, like that rattle in your car you hear but figure will go away. Now we’re broken down, with plenty of time to think about what should have been done.
The failures of the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis can be traced directly to some of the toxic fantasies now dear to the Republican Party.
"... somehow, the party of idealistic Teddy Roosevelt, pragmatic Bob Dole and heroic John McCain became anti-intellectual, by which I mean, almost reflexively opposed to knowledge and expertise. We began to distrust the experts and put faith in, well, quackery. It was 2013 when former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said the Republican Party 'must stop being the stupid party.' By 2016, the party had embraced as its nominee a reality-TV host who later suggested that perhaps the noise from windmills causes cancer."Anti-education:
The Republican Party has gone from admiring William F. Buckley Jr., an Ivy League intellectual, to viewing higher education as a left-wing conspiracy to indoctrinate the young. In retribution, we started defunding education. Never mind that Republican leaders are among the most highly educated on the planet; it’s just that they now feel compelled to embrace ignorance as a cost of doing business. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, as an example, denounces “coastal elites” while holding degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and having served as a Supreme Court clerk.Anti-science:
The GOP’s relationship with science has resembled some kind of Frankenstein experiment: Let’s see what happens when we play with the chemistry set! Conservatives have spent years trying to cut funds for basic science and research, lamenting government seed money for nearly every budding technology and then hoping for the best. In the weeks ahead, it’s not some fiery, anti-Washington populist with an XM radio gig who is going to save folks’ lives; it is more likely to be someone who has been studying this stuff for decades, almost certainly at some point with federal help or outright patronage.So what's happened?
What is happening now is the inevitable result of a party that embraced fear, weaponized xenophobia and regarded facts as dangerous, left-wing landmines that must be avoided.
Trump Failure in the Department of Homeland Security
Excerpt from an article in The Washington Post:
“The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog division has been so weakened under the Trump administration that it is failing to provide basic oversight of the government’s third-largest federal agency, according to whistleblowers and lawmakers from both parties,” Nick Miroff reports. “DHS’s Office of the Inspector General is on pace to publish fewer than 40 audits and reports this fiscal year, the smallest number since 2003 and one-quarter of the agency’s output in 2016, when it published 143 … The audits and reports cover everything from contracts and spending to allegations of waste and misconduct. …
“Inspector General Joseph Cuffari ducked requests to appear on Capitol Hill for routine testimony, a decision congressional staffers describe as unprecedented. Adding to the turmoil, the office’s second-in-command and former acting director, Jennifer Costello, was placed on administrative leave last month for alleged ethical violations, three current DHS officials said. An attorney for Costello said her client was not given a reason for her removal, but Costello believes she has been retaliated against for trying to denounce Cuffari’s mismanagement and wrongdoing.”
Trump Official Resigns In Frustration
Excerpt from an article in The Washington Post:
The director of the Office of Personnel Management resigned in protest with no notice after five months on the job, leaving the agency that oversees workplace policy for 2.1 million civil servants with no leader. “Dale Cabaniss resigned in frustration following months of tension with the White House budget office and more recently with its newly configured staffing office and a political appointee the office installed at OPM in the last month,” Lisa Rein reports. “Cabaniss thought that she was being micromanaged and that her authority was not respected … As human resources manager of the federal workforce, Cabaniss was unable to communicate clear, timely messages to agency managers on how they should respond to the growing public health threat … Guidance to managers on when they should send their staffs home to telework was often vague and came weeks after U.S. health officials urged Americans to work from home and minimize contact with others. Even now, managers say privately they have not received clear instruction from the Trump administration on how to manage their workforce during the crisis."
The director of the Office of Personnel Management resigned in protest with no notice after five months on the job, leaving the agency that oversees workplace policy for 2.1 million civil servants with no leader. “Dale Cabaniss resigned in frustration following months of tension with the White House budget office and more recently with its newly configured staffing office and a political appointee the office installed at OPM in the last month,” Lisa Rein reports. “Cabaniss thought that she was being micromanaged and that her authority was not respected … As human resources manager of the federal workforce, Cabaniss was unable to communicate clear, timely messages to agency managers on how they should respond to the growing public health threat … Guidance to managers on when they should send their staffs home to telework was often vague and came weeks after U.S. health officials urged Americans to work from home and minimize contact with others. Even now, managers say privately they have not received clear instruction from the Trump administration on how to manage their workforce during the crisis."
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Skydiving Without A Parachute
Here's a video of a guy who jumped out of an airplane without a parachute. It's been done before -- a long, long time ago -- but that guy wore a parachute harness, and he was passed a front-mounted reserve in freefall which clipped onto his harness and was deployed in the regular manner. Nothing really dangerous about that, if the skydivers are skilled. I understand there was a second guy also carrying a spare reserve parachute in case something went wrong with the first transfer. They had plenty of altitude and accomplished the transfer with thousands of feet to spare, and the guy deployed at 2,000 feet as normal. (When I say "nothing dangerous," the only dangerous part is you've only got one parachute and no backup in case the first one malfunctions, so that's dangerous.)
This one's different. The guy isn't wearing a harness -- nothing but shorts and sneakers. The guy he's jumping with takes an alarmingly long time messing around with what must be some harness-like piece of equipment our hero is wearing around his waist, so that the two guys are holding onto each other as the single parachute is deployed. (Poor explanation, but watch for yourself):
Here's another web page, entitled "How To Survive Falling From A Plane Without A Parachute! DEBUNKED":
This one's different. The guy isn't wearing a harness -- nothing but shorts and sneakers. The guy he's jumping with takes an alarmingly long time messing around with what must be some harness-like piece of equipment our hero is wearing around his waist, so that the two guys are holding onto each other as the single parachute is deployed. (Poor explanation, but watch for yourself):
Here's another web page, entitled "How To Survive Falling From A Plane Without A Parachute! DEBUNKED":
Museums: A Virtual Tour
Click here for an article at USA Today entitled "Take a virtual tour of these 12 amazing museums closed because of coronavirus," by Maria Puente.
Included are National Gallery of Art: Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; American Museum of Natural History, New York City; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.
Included are National Gallery of Art: Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; American Museum of Natural History, New York City; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Boost Your Laptop WiFi Reception
Click here for a Bob Rankin article entitled "Here's How to Boost Laptop Wifi Reception." There are inexpensive boosters available for your laptop and for your router that significantly increase your wireless range.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Windows Keyboard Shortcuts
These are copied from an article by Bob Rankin:
Shortcuts for Cursor Positioning
Press the Ctrl key all by itself (once or several times) and a circular indicator will appear on the screen where the mouse cursor is positioned. I use this ALL THE TIME, because I'm always losing track of the mouse curcor. If this doesn't work, see this page to enable this feature.
Ctrl+right-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word in a document
Ctrl+left-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word in a document
Ctrl+down-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
Ctrl+up-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph
Shortcuts for Selecting Items
Ctrl+Shift with an arrow key selects a block of text one word at a time
Shift with an arrow key lets you select individual items at random
Delete key or Ctrl+D deletes the selected item(s) to the Recycle Bin
Shift+Delete deletes the selected item(s) without moving them to the Recycle Bin
Shortcuts for Undo and Redo
Ctrl+Z: undoes the last action
Ctrl+Y: redoes the last undone action
Shortcuts for Function Keys
F1: displays context-sensitive Help files and opens the Search Help dialogue box.
F2: renames the current item
F3: opens the Search dialogue to find a file or folder
Miscellaneous Useful Shortcuts
Alt+Tab: cycles through the open applications
Alt+Enter: displays the Properties of a selected item
Alt+F4: closes the current application or window
Alt+Spacebar: opens the shortcut menu for the active window, i. e., Restore, Minimize, Close...
Ctrl+Shift+Esc: opens the Windows Task Manager
Ctrl+Mouse Wheel: changes the zoom level
Windows Logo Key Shortcuts
Few users know the function of the Windows Logo key (also called the Start button), which bears the four-part Windows logo. It actually activates a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts:
Windows key opens the Start menu
Windows key + A: open the Action Center.
Windows key + D: displays the desktop
Windows key + E: opens File Explorer
Windows key + I: Open the Settings menu.
Windows key + L: locks your computer or lets you switch users
Windows key + M: minimizes all open windows
Windows key + Shift + M: restores all minimized windows
Windows key + Ctrl + M: open the Magnifier app
Windows key + R: open the Run dialogue box
Windows key + U: open the Ease Of Access Center
Windows key + V: open the Clipboard app
Windows key + X: open the secret Start menu. (Try it!)
Windows key + .: open the Emojis window
Windows key + Up Arrow: maximize selected window.
Windows key + Down Arrow: minimize selected window.
Windows key + Pause key: display the System Properties dialogue box
Windows key + PrtScn: take a screenshot
Windows key + Shift + S: open the Snip and Sketch tool
Shortcuts for Cursor Positioning
Press the Ctrl key all by itself (once or several times) and a circular indicator will appear on the screen where the mouse cursor is positioned. I use this ALL THE TIME, because I'm always losing track of the mouse curcor. If this doesn't work, see this page to enable this feature.
Ctrl+right-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word in a document
Ctrl+left-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word in a document
Ctrl+down-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
Ctrl+up-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph
Shortcuts for Selecting Items
Ctrl+Shift with an arrow key selects a block of text one word at a time
Shift with an arrow key lets you select individual items at random
Delete key or Ctrl+D deletes the selected item(s) to the Recycle Bin
Shift+Delete deletes the selected item(s) without moving them to the Recycle Bin
Shortcuts for Undo and Redo
Ctrl+Z: undoes the last action
Ctrl+Y: redoes the last undone action
Shortcuts for Function Keys
F1: displays context-sensitive Help files and opens the Search Help dialogue box.
F2: renames the current item
F3: opens the Search dialogue to find a file or folder
Miscellaneous Useful Shortcuts
Alt+Tab: cycles through the open applications
Alt+Enter: displays the Properties of a selected item
Alt+F4: closes the current application or window
Alt+Spacebar: opens the shortcut menu for the active window, i. e., Restore, Minimize, Close...
Ctrl+Shift+Esc: opens the Windows Task Manager
Ctrl+Mouse Wheel: changes the zoom level
Windows Logo Key Shortcuts
Few users know the function of the Windows Logo key (also called the Start button), which bears the four-part Windows logo. It actually activates a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts:
Windows key opens the Start menu
Windows key + A: open the Action Center.
Windows key + D: displays the desktop
Windows key + E: opens File Explorer
Windows key + I: Open the Settings menu.
Windows key + L: locks your computer or lets you switch users
Windows key + M: minimizes all open windows
Windows key + Shift + M: restores all minimized windows
Windows key + Ctrl + M: open the Magnifier app
Windows key + R: open the Run dialogue box
Windows key + U: open the Ease Of Access Center
Windows key + V: open the Clipboard app
Windows key + X: open the secret Start menu. (Try it!)
Windows key + .: open the Emojis window
Windows key + Up Arrow: maximize selected window.
Windows key + Down Arrow: minimize selected window.
Windows key + Pause key: display the System Properties dialogue box
Windows key + PrtScn: take a screenshot
Windows key + Shift + S: open the Snip and Sketch tool
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Pandumbic!
Copy this into your address bar, and play a 1.5-minute clip from Trevor Noah's "The Daily Show" ("The deadly coronavirus is spreading -- and the man in charge is the dumbest person alive.")
https://twitter.com/i/status/1237519854204342273
https://twitter.com/i/status/1237519854204342273
Right-Wing Federal Courts
Click here for an article at Slate by By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, entitled "A Federal Judge Condemned the 'Roberts Court’s Assault on Democracy.’ It’s About Time."
U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman criticizes the five conservative justices on the Roberts Supreme Court in an upcoming Harvard Law & Policy review article. The article begins, brutally:The article says:
By now, it is a truism that Chief Justice John Roberts’ statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that a Supreme Court justice’s role is the passive one of a neutral baseball “umpire who [merely] calls the balls and strikes” was a masterpiece of disingenuousness. Roberts’ misleading testimony inevitably comes to mind when one considers the course of decision-making by the Court over which he presides. This is so because the Roberts Court has been anything but passive. Rather, the Court’s hard right majority is actively participating in undermining American democracy. Indeed, the Roberts Court has contributed to insuring that the political system in the United States pays little attention to ordinary Americans and responds only to the wishes of a relatively small number of powerful corporations and individuals.
[Adelman's] article brings into clear relief the court’s systemic attack on voting rights for minority and other marginalized communities, by way of striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, as well as repeated blessing of voter suppression and decisions not to adjudicate political gerrymandering. He notes that the court privileges the wealthy and corporate interests at the expense of the public. He lays out in detail the rise of the conservative legal movement, starting with the infamous 1971 Lewis Powell memo that served as a right-wing call to arms and tracing its progress through the current well-funded effort to reverse the New Deal in the courts. The article ultimately portrays the slow movement of the Supreme Court to the right—and then the far right—through a long line of cases that reversed the Warren court’s protections for minority groups and poor and working-class Americans. It shows how the court has undermined unions and boosted corporate interests. The court, he notes, has greatly contributed to income inequality, health care inequality, and the hollowing out of the American middle class.Adelman says:
We are thus in a new and arguably dangerous phase in American history. Democracy is inherently fragile, and it is even more so when government eschews policies that benefit all classes of Americans. We desperately need public officials who will work to revitalize our democratic republic. Unfortunately, the conservative Justices on the Roberts Court are not among them.The article continues:
Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has assumed the role of robed Fox News commentator. He disparages women who get abortions, as well as judges who uphold their right to do so. He claims that we can stop mass shootings by shielding police from lawsuits when they accidentally murder innocent people. He intentionally misgenders transgender litigants—as does his colleague, Kyle Duncan, a fellow Trump appointee. Another judge on the 5th Circuit, Edith Brown Clement (a George W. Bush appointee), penned a partisan attack on her colleagues. And, under the influence of Trump’s judges, the 5th Circuit as a whole has begun defying Supreme Court precedent in a series of blatantly political decisions.The U.S. courts have been steadily drifting to the right since Lewis Powell's memo in 1971, and in recent years the drift has become much stronger. The nightmare scenario is Trump somehow being reelected; it's possible, if that were to happen, that Trump would get to replace a couple of liberal Supreme Court justices, presenting the country with a 7-2 conservative majority: disaster.
A startling number of Trump judges appear to believe that, like Ho, their job is mainly to own the libs in print. Neomi Rao, a Trump judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has created a cottage industry out of writing preposterous Trump-friendly polemics. On the same morning that South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman expressed his outrage at Adelman’s article, Rao issued yet another dissent that would protect Trump, this time by denying the House of Representatives access to the unredacted Mueller report. Rao’s position is so extreme that Thomas Griffith, a conservative George W. Bush appointee, penned a separate concurrence just to shred it. It is impossible to ignore the fact that Rao keeps running interference for the Trump administration, making arguments that are promptly shunned. And it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that her lengthy, contorted dissents begin with the proposition that Trump must triumph and work backward from there.
One-Liners
Copied from a post on Quora:
The first computer dates back to Adam and Eve. It was an Apple with limited memory, just one byte. And then everything crashed.
I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom until they are flashing behind you.
Alcohol is a perfect solvent: It dissolves marriages, families and careers.
What is the best thing about living in Switzerland? Well, the flag is a big plus.
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We'll see about that.
A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.
I was born to be a pessimist - my blood type is B Negative.
The first computer dates back to Adam and Eve. It was an Apple with limited memory, just one byte. And then everything crashed.
I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom until they are flashing behind you.
Alcohol is a perfect solvent: It dissolves marriages, families and careers.
What is the best thing about living in Switzerland? Well, the flag is a big plus.
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We'll see about that.
A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.
I was born to be a pessimist - my blood type is B Negative.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Louie Gohmert + Steve King = Stupidity Magnified
Here we go again: another vicious and baseless right-wing conspiracy.
In speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives on February 28, speeches by Louie Gohmert (R-IA, the stupidest member of Congress) and racist Steve King (R-TX) brought these dark and unsupported allegations into the mainstream of political thought.
On February 21, sheriff's deputies discovered the body of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) employee in a roadside pull-over area. Cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound that was "self-inflicted." Unsurprisingly, deranged right-wing conspiracy theorists pounced on this incident as being a murder committed by "Deep State operatives" in order to silence explosive information Haney had been about to reveal about the Obama administration. It's been alleged that Haney wore a thumb drive around his neck that was filled with incriminating information.Basis for these allegations? Zero. It's just a poisonous idea, another diseased product of the right-wing fever swamps that target the dead, who are unable to confirm or deny allegations about them (do a Google search for "Seth Rich").
In speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives on February 28, speeches by Louie Gohmert (R-IA, the stupidest member of Congress) and racist Steve King (R-TX) brought these dark and unsupported allegations into the mainstream of political thought.
“I’m standing on the floor here saying, Madame Speaker, I don’t believe that Phil Haney committed suicide,” King said. “I expect that we’re going to get a thorough investigation. The evidence that is coming to me indicates that he was murdered.”I like a tweet on the subject from commenter Paula Duffy:
Haney had briefly become a right-wing personality in the last years of the Obama administration, appearing on Fox News and Glenn Beck’s radio show to push his allegations that the government was ignoring radical Muslim groups. More recently, he’d claimed to be on a mysterious “special covert assignment” against Muslim-American politician Keith Ellison, now Minnesota’s attorney general.
In a nearly 30-minute speech, Gohmert claimed he had a pact with Haney to reveal unspecified secrets about the government in case either of them was murdered in a crime posed as a suicide. Gohmert claimed Haney was working on a book that would “name names of people that put this country at risk.”
"Gohmert claimed Haney was working on a book that would “name names of people that put this country at risk.”
We already have that. It's called the Mueller Report.
Erik Prince + Project Veritas = Dirty Tricks Magnified
Click here for a story at The New York Times by Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman entitled "Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups."
Erik Prince [of Blackwater fame], the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents.For example:
One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.
Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.
Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.
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